Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for South Wales West - Visit my main website at www.peterblack.wales

Monday, December 24, 2007

Buffer zone

I was fascinated by the letter from Plaid Cymru AM, Bethan Jenkins, in today's South Wales Evening Post in which she confirms her party's commitment to a 500m buffer zone around any new open cast development so as to protect nearby residents

This is something I have campaigned on in the past as well, and as part of that campaign I signed a statement of opinion on the matter in the Assembly some years ago. Of course now that Plaid Cymru is in government we will all look forward to the introduction of this buffer zone in due course.

In the meantime I was puzzled by Bethan's pledge to raise the matter with the Minister again during Environment questions at the Senedd in the new year. This is because on the 12 December 2007 she actually had a question on the Assembly agenda on opencast mining, an ideal time to raise the need for a buffer zone with the Minister.

When it was time for her question to be asked she was nowhere to be seen, having withdrawn it earlier, even though she was in the chamber both before and after the Minister was scheduled to answer it.

Are there limits to the personal commitment to this issue that Bethan writes about in her letter? Perhaps she can enlighten us.

Ask her if she wants a buffer zone around the Wind Turbines Plaid Cymru desperately want for their farmer friends in Ceredigion to reap subsidies out of. Plaid Cymru claimed befgore the Assembly elections that they wanted a moratorium on further Wind Turbines. I ask about the Buffer Zones between houses and Wind Turbines as there are no MANY DOZENS of recoreded incidents of Wind Turbines fragmenting dangerously on land in Powys; Scotland; Cornwall; and Offshore off Cumbria and all around the Globe. These are not toys - but huge machines that have hurled immense fragments long distances,

I wasn't able to be there Peter, so there's your fascination over. I will raise it with the Minister in the New Year as I was unable to do so before the Christmas break. Your short on news, so your looking into this issue too seriously is excusable!

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